


I Never Thought That I'd Get This Cold

by headsinheaven



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Best Friends, Cold Weather, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Van Days, first fob fic babey!!, i somehow managed to cram a hundred references in there see if u can catch them all, i've only ever written for one (1) fandom before so i hope this isn't too ooc, this can be read as peterick or just best friendship but the peterick is suggested multiple times, uhhh idk how to do tags pls help me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headsinheaven/pseuds/headsinheaven
Summary: Thus, here he was. Stuck on a sidewalk nearly half a mile from home and yearning for nothing more than his warm bed and his Walkman. At this point, however, both those things were far, far from his frozen-fingered grasp.“Well, at least the milk and Hot Pockets aren’t gonna go bad, right?”





	I Never Thought That I'd Get This Cold

If Patrick had been given a choice, he would’ve never in a million years decided to venture to the store at nine o’clock in the morning during the heart of Chicago winter. However, the apartment’s rations were so low that a grocery run had been called for, a discovery that had been made during a conversation that went a little something like this:

_(“Dude, we’re out of milk.”_

_“Then just eat the cereal without any, you’re not gonna die.”_

_“We’re out of cereal too!”_

_“Hey guys, I found a few Taco Bell mild sauces in the back of the fridge. If we could just figure out how to split them between the four of us…”_

_“Someone needs to go to the fucking store.”)_

As luck would have it, Patrick had been the chosen one after a rapid round of Not It (totally not fair by the way, he’d literally _just_ woken up and hadn’t even had a chance to suck down a cup of coffee yet). And, because the universe apparently hated him, Joe’s “oh-so-reliable” van had refused to start up, supposedly deciding that it wasn't going to have any of the cold weather today. Patrick had never related more to a fucking automobile.

Thus, here he was. Stuck on a sidewalk nearly half a mile from home and yearning for nothing more than his warm bed and his Walkman. At this point, however, both those things were far, far from his frozen-fingered grasp.

“Well, at least the milk and Hot Pockets aren’t gonna go bad, right?”

Patrick gazed sideways at Pete. The only thing that made the trip a little more bearable (like just a smidge, not even a lot, really) was the fact that he had volunteered to join him, under the declaration that “that’s what besties do for each other, plus that means you guys have to deal with eating whatever I – uh, we - pick out”. Patrick wouldn’t admit it right now, but had he been going this alone, he’s sure he would’ve driven himself to madness by now with all the self-pitying thoughts rattling around in his exhausted brain. Pete served to be a helpful distraction from them, but while Patrick appreciated his attempts at staying positive, it really didn’t help. Not when no matter how hard he tried to look on the bright side of things, bitter wind smacked him in the face at every turn and his glasses were constantly fogging up. “Feels like my lungs are being stabbed by fucking icicles,” he muttered.

Pete hummed. “Dude, that’d make a really good lyric. Mind if I steal it from you?”

“By all means, go right ahead.” As the two turned a corner, Patrick couldn’t help but gaze jealously at his friend. Pete hardly seemed affected by the frigid weather, and sure he was layered up pretty well, but the guy was thin as a rail. Weren’t skinny people more vulnerable to cold? Something about having less fat to insulate their bodies or whatever?

Well, that was Pete Wentz for you. An enigma if Patrick had ever seen one.

…God, Patrick could barely feel his fingers, they were so numb. “Shit, stop for a sec,” he hissed, setting his bags down. Shivering, he blew into his gloved hands, rubbed them together, anything to generate at least an inkling of warmth.

“Dude, serves you right for wearing those ratty things,” Pete said, pointing to his gloves. Patrick looked down at them and, yeah, he could see Pete’s point. They had been a Christmas present from his mom when he was twelve, and even now, Patrick could still remember the weeks she had spent holed up in her room knitting them, forbidding him from entering under the declaration that she couldn’t be distracted. Like every other kid, Patrick hated getting clothes for Christmas, but the moment he had unboxed the gloves and saw his favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dotting them, he cherished them like they were limited-edition action figures.

Needless to say, the gloves had been pretty worn out over the years, the fabric riddled with holes and stretched thin since his hands had obviously grown in – what, five, six years? Clearly not a lot, considering they could still fit him, but Patrick’s lack of pubertal growth was _not_ the issue right now. Right now, he was keen on squeezing everything he could out of his gloves, cold weather be damned. Call him a cheapskate, but when your sole income came from the shitty venues you and your just-recently-named band played, you weren’t exactly going to splurge on clothes.

“With all the money we don’t have? Not like I can afford new ones,” he simply replied. He plucked his bags up and continued down the sidewalk, his warm, welcoming bed popping up like a beacon in his head. God, did he want to be anywhere but here right now. “C’mon, if we walk fast we can get home in about ten minutes, tops.”

Had he not been so caught up in his fantasies, Patrick would've immediately noticed that Pete wasn't walking next to him anymore. Unable to sense him at his side, he twisted around, and sure enough, he was still standing in the same spot as before. A contemplative look had fallen over his face, and Patrick groaned. He knew that look.

It meant he was deliberating something hard, and in Patrick’s experience, when Pete was deliberating, it took a hell of a lot of talking to get him to budge. Talking that Patrick most certainly was _not_ in the mood for at the moment.

“For the love of…what, Pete?”

Pete shook his head and paced to catch up with him. “Well, I was just thinking,” he began, “it sucks that you have to deal with wearing those shitty Leonardo gloves -”

“It’s _Donatello_ on them _,_ actually,” Patrick interrupted perhaps a bit too sharply.

“Whatever. And as your best friend, I can’t _possibly_ sit back and let you catch hypothermia or something. Your hands might have to be, like, amputated, and how will Fall Out Boy ever take off if you can’t play guitar?”

Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Uhhh, okay, then,” he said evenly in response to his oddly dark musings. “And what exactly are you proposing?”

“Umm, well, I -”

“Spit it out dude!”

“I’m saying you should take _my_ gloves.”

It was as if a block of ice had just shattered on the ground; it literally could’ve been the dozens of icicles dangling from the overhangs of the shops surrounding them. Neither Pete nor Patrick said anything for a moment, the silence well, for lack of a better word, _chilling_. People walked past them in a frenzy, muttering their own grievances about the cold and shooting glares at the two boys blocking the middle of the sidewalk.

Patrick stared dumbly at Pete for one, two, five seconds, his head swimming just trying to comprehend the mere aspect of what his friend had suggested. “What are you, an _idiot_?” he finally exclaimed, waving one of the bags in his hands so that it hit him right in the stomach. “You really think I’m just gonna let _you_ freeze your hands off instead of me? You do know you’re our bass player, right? I can’t do that, sing, and play guitar all at once.”

Pete stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Ouch. That hurt. I was just trying to think of a way to help you, ya know?” His gaze fell to the ground. "Sorry for caring about you, I guess."

Patrick sighed, his shoulders drooping. The victim card. He felt like the biggest piece of shit in the world. “Man, that was pretty shitty of me. It’s just…you know how irrational that idea is, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Pete frowned, kicking at the concrete. “Well then…how about this? You take one of my gloves, and I’ll keep the other. Make it even.”

 “…Seriously?”

"Super seriously."

The wind continued to blow around them, nipping (more like assaulting) Patrick’s nose and cheeks, piercing through his clothes, every second that passed pushing him further towards the status of a popsicle. He eyed Pete’s hands, the extra-thick insulated gloves that Mrs. Wentz had no doubt bought him for this very occasion. All at once, his walls crumbled.

“Okay fine, gimme one of the gloves.”

Pete's face split into a grin (yeah, yeah, he had gotten to him), and he wordlessly slipped his left glove off. The moment Patrick plucked his own off and pulled Pete’s on, he sighed quietly at the warmth; he couldn’t deny how much better it made him feel, but still…

“This is stupid,” he said, flexing his fingers. “Now our other hands are just gonna freeze off, not to mention it looks dumb as fuck.”

Pete made an exasperated noise. “Jesus fucking _Christ_.” Reaching over, he yanked Patrick’s Donatello-dotted hand into his and pulled it tightly to his side. “ _There._ Any more complaints, honey?"

Patrick clamped his mouth shut and lowered his chin into his scarf, shocked into silence because one: Pete Wentz was holding his hand and two: _Pete Wentz was holding his fucking hand._ He had not been expecting that in the least. Well, he hadn't been expecting Pete to offer him his goddamn _gloves_ either, and, well. Pete wouldn't do that for just anybody. Patrick would've expected an endless torrent of jeering and joking from Pete all the way home, not all this concern. It's what he would have done to any of the other guys.

It had to have just been the impact hypothermia could have on the success of the band. It had to be. At least, that's what he told himself.

Patrick let out a sigh. He really couldn’t deny how nice the skin-on-skin contact felt. Well, extremely thin fabric-on-skin contact. As he and Pete plodded onward, hands intertwined, he came to the conclusion that if anyone asked about why his cheeks were redder than usual, he would blame it on the cold.

__

Yeah, the cold.

__

“Y’know I’d never let anyone chop your hands off, right, Patrick?”

__

“Gee…thanks, Pete.”

__

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr @ stumpopedia!
> 
> i also felt the need to mention: the title is a lyric off of fob's newest llamania ep, from the song "footprints in the snow"


End file.
